Monthly Archives: February 2014

Yes, I’m keeping up with my monthly check-ins, even if they’re boring, because two months into 2014 and I’m still finding “Accountability” to be the word of my year. So, without further ado, onward on the update of my 2014 goals/resolutions!

1. Read 5 MGs – Uhhhh still not yet. Though I did just buy one of the ones on my list! The awesome Rebecca Behrens had a fantastic launch party for her debut, WHEN AUDREY MET ALICE, and I got my very own signed copy. I also got to see Rebecca read from it, and hang out with Lindsay Ribar, Heidi Schulz, Adam Silvera, Brooks Sherman, Alison Cherry, Emery Lord, Michelle Schusterman, Kim Liggett, Lauren Magaziner, Laura Marx Fitzgerald, and Adriana Brad Schanen. So, uh, having a pretty freaking good MG experience so far!

2. Read 20 Non-Contemp YAs – Got to cross two more off my list: HEXED by Michelle Krys had such a fun voice, perfect for a contemp fiend like me, and TIGER LILY by Jodi Lynn Anderson was such an intriguing read, and a cool take on the Peter Pan story. So, together with THE FOURTH WISH and GRACELING, I’m up to four. Not bad! (Also, NA should totally count here – I just read THE WICKED WE HAVE DONE by Sarah Harian, and it kicked serious ass.)

4. Read 115 Other Books – I’m up to 27 for the year (as seen here), so, minus the four non-contemp YAs, I’m at 21/115. Not bad!

5. Finish my Follow-Up to BEHIND THE SCENES – Working on it! And I’m getting closer, thanks to the awesomeness of my CPs Marieke Nijkamp, Gina Ciocca, and especially Maggie Hall, who’s talked this book to death with me. Also major thanks to my accountabilibuddy, Lindsay Smith, for shaming me into writing even when I’m not feeling it. It may look like my word count hasn’t really been going anywhere, and in fact has dropped considerably (especially given I won NaNo with this thing!) but crazy amounts of rewriting, POV-stripping, and storyline revising have gone into this thing already, and all that’s left now is straight-up drafting. Trust me, that’s huge.

In case you’re curious about how it’s shaping up, here are a couple of random lines I’ve tweeted:

(Oh and the line’s: “Jesus, Shannah, you’re like a walking STD—we fucked and now I can’t get rid of you.” Sorry. You asked.) #amwriting#UtL

6. Finish drafting LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT – Ah, the manuscript I keep sneaking just a little more in to when I’m not supposed to. I only foresee it getting another 5K or so before the first draft is done, which is…eep. Major eep. God, I love this book for no other reason than it’s six kinds of depraved.

Note: This post and the greater Compendium are no longer being updated as of April 2016. For far more comprehensive book lists, please visit LGBTQReads instead!

If you follow me on Twitter, or listen to me babble anywhere else, there’s a good chance you know I’m a pretty massive advocate of QUILTBAG YA/NA.

Yes, QUILTBAG is kind of a dumb word (for the unfamiliar, it stands for QUeer/QUestioning Intersex Lesbian Transgender Bisexual Asexual Gay), and I do sincerely apologize to anyone for whom this is not the preferred term, but I’ve chosen it for being the most outwardly inclusive option, particularly given that I actively wanted to highlight some Intersex books as well.

Since I’m always kinda going on about it in a lot of random places, I thought it’d probably be a good idea to get all that information down in one spot, particularly a spot with a comments section, since obviously I’m far from the be-all and end-all of knowledge on the subject.

(For a waaaay more comprehensive site entirely on the subject of GLTBQ+ YA, check out Lee Wind‘s fantastic review site. )

This will be another one of those posts I update with some frequency, but it’s important to me to get it started, so, this is me, doing that.

First up, some websites and blog posts – emphasizing the importance of writing and supporting it, recommending it, and helping you write and/or publish it:

Blogs/Sites

Gay YA – a site dedicated to featuring LGBTQIA+ characters in Young Adult Literature

Next up, a not-at-all comprehensive list of published QUILTBAG YA/NA.Requirements for being on this list are:

1) The main* character, storyline, or love interest has to be QUILTBAG

and

2) At least one person whose opinion I respect has to have loved it, even if I didn’t (though if I thought it was a legit terrible book, it’s not making it on here)

*Dual-POVs in which one of two are QUILTBAG have been included

If a book is bolded, it means I’ve read it. If it isn’t, it means it was recommended by someone I trust. Just FYI, in case you have questions/complaints about a particular title. (And if I haven’t read it, it’s on my TBR.)

If a book is in blue, it means it’s intersectional – at least one of the characters who is QUILTBAG is also a PoC.

And yes I’m tagging which letters it encapsulates where I feel like it’s been firmly established (and Q where it hasn’t, I’m not sure because I haven’t read it, and/or the book is particularly focused on not putting characters in boxes) and please feel free to tell me if you think I’m misrepresenting, especially if you’re the author. I’m not trying to force any labels; I just want people to more easily be able to find the books they’re looking for, particularly the ones dedicated to less frequently represented members of the community:

If you’ve got a book rec, or read a blog post on the subject that meant a lot to you, or you’re an agent who wants to be added to the list – whatever – I just want to be as comprehensive as possible, so please help make it easier in the comments!

Last year I rounded up a collection of things on the internet that are awesome, but as it turns out, more awesome things kept popping up! So, in an effort to make sure they don’t get lost, here are a few more things I’ve seen in the past bunch of months that I think are awesome:

Let’s be honest – there will probably always be something hilarious by Mallory Ortberg of The Toast on here. In this case: Dirtbag Hamlet

My CP Maggie Hall is currently traveling the world like the BAMF she is, and her and her husband’s blog is filled with crazy awesome pictures of their travels, which include Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos, China, Japan, Italy, Spain…I’ll stop now before you spontaneously combust with jealousy like I do on a daily basis: www.Its-Adventure-Time.com

The Cuddlebuggery has a post by Kat Kennedy on “When Love Triangles Should be Threesomes.” I mean, the answer is obviously “always,” but it’s still worth reading, if for no other reason than to inspire your next book to be more interesting.

And, finally, this week there was a #TwitterLoveStories hashtag that required writing an entire love story in one tweet. My fabulously talented friend Anna-Marie McLemore, author of THE WEIGHT OF FEATHERS, happens to have written my favorite one:

When I met her I thought she was a boy. I said I was sorry. She told me not to be, that I was the only one who’d noticed. #TwitterLoveStory

With apologies to my wonderful blog followers, I now post in so many places on the Internet that posts like these are probably going to become a lot more prevalent on The Daily Dahlia. Basically, I just don’t want any of my brilliance to get lost (and by brilliance I mean “mostly recs of other people’s brilliance”) and so here’s yet another post of what I’ve been posting! (Did that sort of exhaust you? It sort of exhausted me.)

Today, the fabulous ladies of Finding Bliss in Books have included me in their “Finding Swoons in Books” series, posted in honor of Valentine’s Day and including great posts by some seriously awesome authors. And me. Here’s mine, on my favorite kinds of YA romances and what books showcase them best, and there’s even a tiny snippet (read: most of a line) from Behind the Scenes!

Last week, the lovely Becky Wallace interviewed me as part of here series, “Editor’s Note.” You can see me there talking about working with my editor, how I revise, and what errors I see most often as a copy editor!

And the lovely MG Buehrlen interviewed me as part of her YA Authors As YAs series, so you can check that out hereand enter to win a pre-order of Behind the Scenes!

And in fun life things, last week my fab friend KK Hendin and I went to a Q&A/signing at the Columbia University bookstore with Jennifer Armentrout (aka J. Lynn), Cora Carmack, and Jay Crownover. They had a lot of interesting stuff to stay on their books and upcoming projects, but here were my two favorite takeaways:

1) Every NA author, no matter how successful, has a little fear about breaking out of the mold of what have become the NA standard tropes. Thankfully, some are finally doing it anyway, and I personally can’t wait to see what NA looks like in 2014-15.

2) There comes a point where you realize that giving the readers what they want just isn’t sustainable. There are two big reasons for this:

A) Because writing what someone else wants, rather than what you want, devolves into the painful exercise of pulling teeth, and

B) Sometimes readers don’t realize they don’t really want what they think they do. A huge example of this: You think you want another book following the couple you just fell in love with. You don’t realize that means the couple will have to be broken up, in order to give them another story. You don’t really want them to break up, though, do you? Of course you don’t!

So, cool month so far, and hopefully it’ll continue to be as long as my flight to LA this week does not get canceled due to snow oh my God enough with the snow. I’ll spare you what I’ve been reading and writing because haha I’m obviously blogging about that later this month, so!How’s your February going so far?

Okay, yes, I’m ripping off that title despite never having read the book or seen the movie, but it’s just so apt, isn’t it? Haven’t we all wondered that about someone or another, how he or she seems to be able to do everything, and do it well? Haven’t we all thought, “I would punch a clown to be able to accomplish half of what (s)he has?” And you don’t need me to tell you (again) what a waste of time and mental energy this all is; you know it. You just can’t stop. Because The Comparison Game is like a slot machine at a casino – anyone and everyone can think they’re just in for a second, just playing it once, and then suddenly it’s been hours, days, and you’ve hit ups and downs and have no clue how much time you’ve lost but everything sure seems shiny in a soul-sucking way.

The thing is, I’m on the receiving end of this sort of question a lot. I’ve been asked how I do so many things, or how I’ve read so many books so far this year, etc. etc. And given that this happened to me a lot last week after posting my first monthly check-in post of the year, I decided that I’m going to sit down and actually explain it. In painstaking and brutally honest detail.

Because here’s the thing. “How she does it” is often a way you would never, ever do it. Circumstances might not allow it. Brain chemistry might not allow it. Financial situations might not allow it. And forget allowing – there are a billion things about the way I operate that should never be emulated by anyone, really.

But you’ve asked. And whether or not you were being rhetorical, here are the answers to this particular FAQ and all its subsets:

1) How I Read So Much:

I will get this out there immediately – I do read quickly. I always have. It is not always a good thing. I do have the tendency to skim, especially when I’m not particularly compelled by the text. I realized very late into Little Women that I’d completely missed the part where Beth dies. So, this has its pros and its cons, but either way, it’s my reality.

More importantly though, is this: I have built-in, dedicated time for it. Not time I make because oh I’m so good and I make sure I put reading in my schedule. Built-in, dedicated time because that is how my life works. By which I mean:

My commute involves an hourlong subway ride each way. Oftentimes I kinda just pass out on the morning ride, but sometimes I actually do get some reading in. On the way home, however, I always, always read (except for the rare times I write in my notebook). This is pretty much the only time I spend reading during the week, unless I can squeeze in a few chapters before bed. I read almost strictly NA and lighter contemp YA during this time, and it usually takes me 2-3 subway rides per book, which means I probably read two books per week on my commute.

I observe Jewish Sabbath. This means that for 25 hours a week – from sundown on Friday to an hour after sundown on Saturday – I do not touch my computer, phone, or TV. I do not travel. I do not cook. I do not write, including by pen. Literally all I do is eat, sleep, and read. And not eBooks, because I do not touch my Kindle either. If it operates via electricity or battery, it is off limits. (The same does not apply to passive use, to anyone wondering right now if I sit in the dark the entire time. I do not.) If we do not have company, I can usually read one book Friday night and two on Saturday. If we do, then I read less, because pulling a book out at the table is frowned upon, apparently.

If I had a driving commute, or a walking commute, I could not do this. If I were not a Sabbath-observing Jew, I would not do this. My ability to read as much as I do is about 90% life-circumstantial, and they are not circumstances most people, including probably you, aim for.

2) How I Tweet So Much:

I was actually surprised to get this question, and when I told my husband that I’d been asked it more than once (by people who seemed impressed by my ability to fit it into my day, rather than mocking as they probably should’ve been), he laughed and said, “Did you explain that it’s sort of like breathing for you?”

I didn’t, because that sounds super sad, but it’s kind of the truth. Tweeting, for me, is not hard. It is not time-consuming. It is not something I spend time thinking about doing before I do it. (A lot of my tweets probably make that really clear, tbh.) It is a thing that, for me, is easy and fits easily into my day, because it is not taxing on my brain and I don’t have anxiety about it and I have an iPhone.

Here are things that are not easy for me: Fast drafting. Writing an articulate book review. Writing outside my genre. Reading outside my genre. Writing a good query letter on my first shot. Writing a synopsis. Taking crowded city buses. Learning how to drive. Dieting. Exercising. Using Instagram. Reaching out to potential mathematician-authors as required by my job. Stopping myself from blowing up at someone when (s)he’s upset me and I’m stressed out. Writing in a literary style. Making phone calls. Being in a car for more than fifteen minutes without worrying I’m going to get sick. Knowing I have to get in a car for more than fifteen minutes without worrying I’m going to get sick. Maintaining a respectable attention span for the duration of a movie. Reading the classics. Using a foreign language to speak to somebody fluent in said language. Asking for promotional help. Writing extroverted characters. Writing parents. Scheduling doctors’ appointments I need to. Running. Vlogging. Blog posts on writing advice.

WTF is my point?

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, their things that come naturally and their things that don’t. You can waste so much time beating yourself up wondering why something comes so easily to someone else that doesn’t to you. Or you can maximize what does come easily to you, make the most of it, and realize that you probably naturally kick ass at something that person struggles with like crazy. As far as skills go, given the choice between effortlessly writing beautiful prose and effortlessly writing a funny tweet, I’d probably take the former.

I make the best out of the latter.

(And, here’s what I actually answered one of the times I was asked, because I think it also helps explain how my brain works: “The only way I can multitask is to constantly multitask, like take breaks from one thing by doing another. If I take an actual break, like to watch TV or something, I’m screwed. But twitter keeps me going in the same direction, if that makes sense. Ditto blogging.”)

And all other “How Do You…?” questions are going to have similar answers: I focus on what I can, not what I can’t. I prioritize the things that work for me, that fit into my day. That isn’t to say I don’t challenge myself. I’d hope everyone who’s read my books would back up that I work my ass off to write different perspectives and settings and stories. I leave my house at 7:30 AM and go to sleep around 1:00 AM and am reading, dayjobbing, writing, copy editing, and blogging for almost that entire time. But my life isn’t like everyone else’s. I do not have kids. I do have whatever “enough money” is. I do have a supportive husband who cooks and cleans on top of being a lawyer. I do have a multi-tasking brain. My nightly six-ish hours of sleep are uninterrupted.

But also:

I do not factor exercising into my week, because I don’t do it.

I don’t factor cleaning into my week, because I don’t do it.

I only have to factor cooking into my week when my husband works too late to do it.

I barely factor showering into my week, because I don’t care.

I barely factor socializing into my week, because I say no to it 98% of the time, except on Sabbath.

I do not factor in doctors’ appointments, because I do not make them, to the point where even when I considered therapy at a point this year, I ultimately decided not to go because I was too stressed out at the thought of adding a new obligation to my calendar.

I do not factor in childcare or sick children or any of those things because I do not have kids.

I’m also a pretty lousy daughter, sister, and aunt, if I’m being pretty honest.

And I’ve lost all my friends who require phone calls as part of friendship maintenance, because anything that requires the combination of privacy and a wholly singular focus literally does not fit into my day and I cannot make it do so except on the rarest of occasions.